Happy Birthday

I checked the clock to see that I woke up 5 minutes ahead of my usual 7:40 alarm time. I stood up, scratched my head a bit and shuffled off to the bathroom. I splashed water on my face to wake me up, and I returned to my room. It was the 31st of March, which the whole family knew was mom’s birthday. I got her this nice watch that I knew she would really love. I opened my closet and started looking for the present that I hid. I pulled it out and placed it on top of the desk beside my bed. On the desk, I saw a sheet of paper. Slightly crumpled and its top torn, I peered closely to what was written.

“Happy birthday to me”

It was written in crayon with a few letters written backwards. Little Justin probably wrote this. I turned the paper over to see that it was a page torn off of a calendar, with the date marking:

March 31, 2012.

I took my gift and threw the paper away. I ran downstairs to give my gift to mom. I called for dad but no-one answered.

It was quiet.

I checked all the rooms of the house, with no signs of my parents or Little Justin. I sighed. I walked up to the kitchen, placed my gift on the counter top and grabbed myself a glass of orange juice, my favorite drink in the morning. While drinking, I looked out the glass door to the backyard and I saw my dad and Little Justin lying down under the tree, by the tire swing.

I smiled.

As I turned, I started feeling a little dizzy and disoriented. I started calling out for dad for help but he didn’t answer. It was becoming increasingly harder to keep my balance, so I grabbed on to the counter top. I started shouting for dad but he didn’t get up. Something was wrong. Eventually, numbness took my body over and I dropped to the floor.

I opened my eyes.

I was lying flat on the grass, facing the cloudless sky. There was duct tape on my mouth and on my whole body, keeping me from getting up, or even barely moving. Beside me was dad and Little Justin.
A shadow-clouded figure walked up to us and sat on the tire swing beside us. As the swing turned, the shadow cleared up.

Mom.

She was smiling at us. My dad was squirming and kicking and shouting as hard as he could. Then, out of the blue, she started telling us the story of how she and dad got married.

Little Justin was crying. She bent over and whispered to him:

“Shh shh shh! Don’t worry, honey. Everything is going to be all right.”

I was feeling a little groggy again. I could barely keep my eyes open. For a moment, I could swear I heard mom singing “Happy birthday to me…happy birthday to me…” as she walked around me, dad and Little Justin, who was crying a lot harder. I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. Then, suddenly, dad stopped moving. Little Justin stopped crying. I started feeling something wet and warm envelop my body.

Then she said: “Thank you for the watch, sweetie!”, and I felt a sharp pain on my stomach and I blacked out.

Then I woke up.

I was on my bed. I got up and wiped the sweat off of my face. It was all a dream, I thought. Taking a deep breath, I stood up and checked the time. It was 7:35 am. I started feeling a bit uneasy so I rushed to the bathroom and splashed water on my face. Feeling a little better, I called out for dad. No-one answered. The house was quiet. Too quiet. I walked up to the hallway and I found some of Justin’s toys and I snooped around my parents’ room; no-one was inside. I looked at my mom’s side of the room.

I checked her desk.

There, I found a bundle of receipts for “zolpidem”, a receipt at United Cutlery, and a few crayon shavings. Terrified, I turned to look at their calendar.